I Had a Childhood

I was born in 1989. After the Internet was invented but before the Berlin Wall came down. 
I remember when cassettes became CDs (“Mum! You can switch to a different song without fast forwarding!”) and VHS became DVDs (“Mum! You don’t have to rewind these before you bring them back to Blockbuster!” R.I.P. Blockbuster. And Rogers video). 
My parents let me ride my bike to the gas station to buy Pokemon cards when I was seven. 

My cousins, my sister, and I were eight, five, and three when, with no supervision, we climbed a mountain in Drumheller. We named a part of the mountain “Suicide Rock” because we knew if we fell off of it, we’d be dead. 

My uncle kept his gun in the basement where my cousins and I played. At ages five and two, we knew better than to touch it. 

When I was seven, I flew in a plane for the first time and I got to visit the pilot in the cockpit. War was something that happened a long time before I was born. 

My school’s playground gave me splinters .Teachers didn’t “facilitate my learning”, they taught me. I learned there were moments to sit down and shut up. 

My parents read to me every night. 

When we took a family picture, we had to wait for the film to be developed before we could see how the picture turned out. 

I sat through commercials but my screen time was limited. When I was bored, my parents gave me a cardboard box and some markers, or told me to play outside. 

I had a childhood.